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How to remove everything after a character in Excel and Google Sheets
Topic:Text manipulationExcel & Google Sheets
=LEFT(A2,FIND("@",A2)-1)✓
Verified example
Computed by a real spreadsheet engine on the sample data below.
| alice@example.com |
| bob@company.org |
| carol@domain.net |
| david@mail.co |
=LEFT(A2,FIND("@",A2)-1)→alice
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Step by step
- 1Identify the character you want to split on — for example '@' or ','.
- 2Use FIND("@",A2) to get the position of that character.
- 3Subtract 1 so you exclude the character itself from the result.
- 4Wrap in LEFT: =LEFT(A2,FIND("@",A2)-1) returns everything before the character.
- 5Add IFERROR around it to handle cells where the delimiter is absent: =IFERROR(LEFT(A2,FIND("@",A2)-1),A2).
Tips
- To remove everything after the LAST occurrence of a character (when it appears multiple times), replace FIND with a last-occurrence pattern using SUBSTITUTE and REPT.
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Frequently asked
What if the character doesn't appear in the cell?
FIND returns #VALUE!, so wrap the whole formula in IFERROR(…,A2) to return the original text unchanged.
Is FIND case-sensitive?
Yes, FIND is case-sensitive. Use SEARCH instead of FIND if you need case-insensitive matching.
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